i3 or a amd phenom II X4 955

[simsalafan]

ok,my friend will buy a new pc and will play dolphin his budget is 400€ and what cpu is better i3 3220 or a amd phenom II X$ 955 he will play new super mario bros wii and mario kart wii in 360p

[admin89]

i3 3220 of course
It's a no-brainer

See benchmark thread (i3 2120 Sandy Bridge beat Phenom IIx4 955 and i3 3220 Ivy Bridge is faster than i3 2120)
Even if you overclock the Phenom to 4.0GHz , i3 Ivy is still faster in Dolphin

Quote:he will play new super mario bros wii and mario kart wii in 360p

With Integrated GPU : Intel HD 4000 , you can play any games at 1x or 1.5x Internal Resolution (480p or higher) . Super mario bros wii and mario kart wii are not GPU intensive games , so he can play those games at 2x or 2.5xIR (720p or higher)
i3 3220 has Intel HD 2500 which is slower than Intel HD 4000
He should buy i3 3225 if he want to play game at 720p

[simsalafan]

he will buy a gt640 or a amd radeon hd 7750.is this ok?and runs super mario sunshine or Pokemon xd in fullspeed?

[admin89]

Btw , he could also choose A10 5800k , it's cheaper than i3 3225 and it outperforms the i3 in multi-threaded application (not Dolphin)
A10 5800k is also a good choice for overclocking (you can bclk-overclock the i3 but not much)
A10's Integrated GPU outperform i3's Intel HD 4000 by a large margin ....
If he chose A10 , he would not need to spend money for a graphic card

[simsalafan]

is this good for dolphin?

[admin89]

A10 should run most games full speed or near full speed except demanding games
Give him this link :
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2047/18/
It will show him how to overclock that CPU

[simsalafan]

I do not trust me to overclock the cpu;(also is a i3 and a hd 7750 for me better?

[LordVador]

If you don't overclock choose i3 (you can't overclock with it anyway). Phenom II is better only if you plan to overclock

[rpglord]

Neither
For 400 Euro he should be able to get atleast i5 2400 or i5 3450
gt 640 is not ok either, because, again, for that money he could get better card 650 or even 650ti

He is getting ripped off if for 400 Eur all he is getting is poor gt 640 and i3 cpu
Thats more like 300 Eur teritory

[admin89]

Quote:Phenom II is better only if you plan to overclock

Better ? Not Worse ?
Phenom II is not good at overclocking , i bet you could push it to 3.9GHz but it still not as fast as i3 3220 in Dolphin
Btw . 3.9GHz is really high and dangerous (stock speed : 3.2GHz) . Some users are able to push it to 4.1GHz with watercooling though the cost for it...
Recommend : 3.7-3.8GHz